"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
08-26-2021, 11:45 PM (This post was last modified: 08-27-2021, 11:27 AM by Saturnelle.)
Her nose twitched, black velvet skin slipping over the rough bark of a pine with an abstract sort of desperation. They weren't here either.
For all she could sense, her mother and father had fallen off the face of the world. No scent, sight or sense remained of the pair, and she was growing weary of searching. Weary of walking, too. It was better than idling away in Loess, though. Cheri said they'd be safe there, and that seemed true enough. Her elder sister was increasingly busy with her own responsibilities these days, taking up a heavy mantle a little more every day.
All while Nelle and the rest were meant to settle in, stay safe. Stay put.
She hadn't meant to wander off the first few times. She'd simply wanted to find the edges of her new world, and then a little more. Exploration turned into purpose as her wanderings took her further afield, sometimes for days at a time.
Some days, like today, she wondered if it was worth going back, or if she should just go back to the Taiga and embed herself in the forest she'd spent her first year of life in. It felt like home, but her family was no longer there. Versus Loess, which was nothing like home, but held a good chunk of her kin.
Grumbling a discordant note, her antenna flicked in the chill breeze. North, maybe? There was more family there, she thought. Even if it was all ice and snow. The truth was, she didn't know what she wanted.
"Any ideas?" She mumbled to the rattling branches overhead. A few drab leaves spun to the ground. Not the answer she'd been hoping for, and if it was a sign from the universe, interpreting it was beyond her.
On this day, Cassiell found himself lounging within a particularly stout pine there in the forest, draped across a collection of branches like an oversized panther. So rarely did he place himself in so vulnerable a position -- and in a public place no less -- as he found himself being lulled into a half-dozing state by the whisper of the chill autumn wind dancing through the evergreens. But even brooding, seemingly heartless brutes have to nap every once-in-a-while, no?
The sound of movement beneath him was enough to stir the stallion from his reverie, though, and his ears were soon pricking at the sound of delicate hooves upon the forest floor while his nostrils flared to catch the scent of the young filly down below. Hefting his great skull, he cast his gaze downward to see those molten eyes of his catching upon the sight of that most peculiar creature -- a filly like none he had ever seen before. Eyelids lowering to see his golden orbs half-hooded, he studied her most shamelessly from behind that curtain of pine needles, taking in the sight of her moth-like wings, her antennae, the downy fur which dappled her form.
A nearly inaudible grunt huffing from deep within his own chest was his only outward response to his initial study of the little femme.
But when she posed that question seemingly to the tree itself -- the tree in which he was currently perched -- the midnight pegasus could hardly resist. "I have many ideas," came his rumbling reply, his baritone roiling to life like a bout of dark thunder from the treetop. With a faint smirk toying at the corner of his velveteen lips, the stallion flexed his raven wings and, with a few beats, was able to hoist his form off of its haphazard perch to see him instead leaping to the ground to land just out of reach of the peculiar foal. He landed heavily, tarnished hooves digging hungrily into the loamy earth, to see him then looming over the youth, golden eyes only for her.
Lofting a single eyebrow in clear question, he continued to simply look down upon her for a few moments more before he finally broke his own silence with another rumble of: "Though at present, my main idea is to wonder at what a young one like you is doing wandering about alone?"
He’s not proud to admit it, but he’s been following the moth-child for some time now.
He isn’t like her - he doesn’t have a family to return to, or even a home if he’s being honest. His mother is a wanderer, constantly drifting from one spot to another — never long enough to call anywhere home — and she had only kept Ymir along for the ride long enough to ensure that he would survive without her, and then she had disappeared once more to continue on her wandering, alone. She had no use for him any longer, and the boy had watched her fade into the shadows.
He doesn’t miss her, though he is a bit lonely. She had never been very warm and certainly was never the type to cuddle — it doesn’t help that the boy is encased entirely in ice.
The girl seems a tad confused on where to go and Ymir is silent as he loops around her unseen, trying to find a good way to come and introduce himself. She looks about his age, and he’s desperate for any sort of friendship or companionship, regardless of how brief the interaction may be. Her antenna flick in his direction and he freezes — had she noticed him? — but her attention seems drawn elsewhere, and she murmurs something that he can’t hear into the breeze.
It doesn’t escape the attention of a stallion nestled in the trees above them, and Ymir is an icy sculpture as the winged man lands in front of the possible-new-friend. There’s something about him that makes Ymir feel uneasy, and he is driven to step forward from the darkness of the trees as the stranger asks why she’s alone.
“She’s not alone,” he interjects, his bravery wavering as he catches the girl’s eyes, silently pleading with her to play along. “She’s with me.” His hooves leave icy prints in the ground as he moves around the enormous stallion, coming to a stop near the girl without touching her. His dam had described his touch as icy, and he doesn’t want to brush against her and leave her cold.
“I’m Ymir,” he continues, hoping she at least pretends to fall into an easy rhythm. “What were you doing in a tree, other than being creepy?”
Saturnelle froze, as surely as if ice had been injected through her veins. She hadn't felt him, not until he'd fallen the earth in front of her, and that was an unsettling realisation. Had she been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that his emotions hadn't come through? Or had there simply been no emotions to feel? Not until his eyes locked on her, and a wave of penetrating Curiosity made her antennas quiver.
"I... I um..." She fumbled for words, harsh bells ringing in her head and in the air she occupied. Warning bells? Perhaps, though at the moment they merely echoed the confusion she was experiencing. Added to by the appearance of another new face.
This one is shorter than the imposing black knight who fell from through the air. Shorter, and with a feeling of... Bravado? It was hard to tell. Her jewel-green eyes widened uncertainly, faced with two strangers and no backup plans. To be fair though, this glimmering boy seemed much less intimidating than the watching stallion.
He moved beside her, and her skin tremored unexpectedly at the cool air he pushed her way. "I'm Saturnelle." She echoed his introduction, patterned wings fluttering thoughtfully. Her face tilted upwards to better see the tall stallion's expression while she privately considered what she'd do if things turned sour. How to get herself and this icy colt out of here intact.
The midnight pegasus had only a few moments in which he could study the strange moth-child undisturbed before there was the voice of another breaking from amongst the trees. 'She's not alone,' came the bold assertion and the brute turned his great skull in that direction to see his fiery, golden gaze falling upon the grey colt. Amusement sparked deep within him -- a fleeting sort of feeling, but one which could surely be detected by the Empath nonetheless. The first emotion he had allowed himself since the children had first disturbed his rest high within the treetops. Ah, young bravado, he idly mused as his attention skimmed across the form of the much younger male. The sight of ice trailing in his wake was certainly interesting and it was a fact the winged stallion took note of silently, a bit of information filed away for later perusal. But of far more immediate interest was the clearly protective sort of stance the colt took at the side of the antenna-adorned filly.
His velveteen lips twitched oh-so-briefly at the sight.
More spirit than sense -- that was the way of children, especially the colts. But he found it almost endearing in a way. Ymir, the icy colt gave for a name. And Saturnelle the moth-child soon supplied. Ymir. The heavily scarred pegasus gave him one more once-over as he mused, for but a moment, how the young one vaguely reminded him of his own sons. It was a swiftly passing thought and one which stirred no feeling within his soul, no note of sorrow as that brief memory of his life before strummed across his heart.
His children were all dead and there was no sense in lingering upon the past, upon that which was and cannot be changed.
But this Saturnelle? Here was a little creature who stoked his curiosity. Golden eyes turning upon her once more at last, he finally allowed for an introduction of his own to rumble forth. A mere dark utterance of: "Cassiell." And then his attention was tossed back Ymir's way when he added, a thread of amusement lacing its way through his tone, "And as for what I was doing in that tree? Taking a nap if you must know." As though in punctuation to such a confession, he rolled his shoulders to see his raven-hued wings unfurling to their full expanse. A brief stretch and nothing more before those appendages saw themselves tucked back alongside his marred torso.
"Now then," he mused, his rich baritone unfurling past his lips like a peal of low thunder. "What are a couple of young ones like you doing wandering about?" Faintly canting his head to the side, he further observed: "You seem lost," though those final words were directed more toward the child with the moth wings rather than her winter-touched companion.
